


Three Less One

by ruff_ethereal



Category: Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero
Genre: Depression, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 21:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3951994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruff_ethereal/pseuds/ruff_ethereal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Penn gets left behind during a mission. Boone and Sashi try to deal with the loss of their friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Three Become Two

**Author's Note:**

> For huntingtimedemonsinbakerstreet on tumblr.

“Pull me off, and you risk destroying this entire dimension once the power runs out… unless one of you sacrifice yourselves and take my place.

“It's so simple, my dear boy: let me be on the throne, I become a full-time villain, and you and your little friends go home.”

Rippen grinned. “What will it be, Penn Zero? What will it be?”

The giant cogs and machines all around us kept on ticking peacefully, steady as a heartbeat. The pipes attached to Rippen's throne glowed with green energy, brightening and fading at the same pace as the ticking.

The gears and mechanisms inside Rippen's clockwork body slowly but surely wound down till the dimension drained every last drop of life from him, and his body would be as still and lifeless as the Caretaker before him.

We all looked at the original Caretaker, still crumpled and twisted on the floor after Rippen grabbed their corpse and threw them off the throne. Their serene expression and contented smile were still frozen on their face; they'd been dead for a long time before any of us got inside the core of the World's Metronome.

We all looked back at Rippen, sitting in the throne, watching cages descended from the ceiling, mechanical arms coming to life to protect him from harm or worse, getting dethroned before it was time to replace him.

Penn rushed forward, grabbed Rippen's shoulders, and threw him off.

Rippen flailed in the air before he landed on the floor with a thud. He quickly picked himself up from the floor, and stared at Penn, looking as stunned as we were. Before he could even scream “Nooo!”, Penn sat on the throne, the cage locked in place, and we zapped out.

I looked around me as I floated back into the Odyssey, still stunned and confused. Boone was at my side, but Penn wasn't. We both touched down on the zap platform, and turned back to the MUT.

On the teleporter screen, we saw Penn sitting on the throne, a content smile on his face as as the machines all around him hummed and churned, now controlled and powered by him.

Then the panels slid shut over it.

I snapped my head up to the catwalks. “Phyllis, what the heck just happened?! Where's Penn?”

“Did not see? Was on throne.” Phyllis replied as dour as ever.

Panic, confusion, anger—my three most hated emotions all boiled up inside of me right there and then.

“That can't be right—we finished the mission, didn't we?” Boone asked. “Shouldn't Penn be with us right now?”

Phyllis shook her head. “Remember what mission was?”

I did.

The Clockwork dimension's current Caretaker had died, exactly one year after they sat on the throne took on the position. Without a living Caretaker, the whole world would slowly grind to a halt, and we needed to stop Rippen from taking the now-empty throne for himself and ruling the world.

Never once did we question why it wasn't part of our mission to find a new Caretaker from the dimension itself, nor did we wonder why it was only the five of us in the control room—me, Boone, Penn, Rippen, and Larry.

Now it was the only thing on my mind.

I kept standing on the platform, the circle under my feet still glowing. Boone did the same.

“Phyllis, send us back! We have to get Penn!”

Phyllis rolled her eyes and casually shut down the rest of the MUT. The circles underneath our feet dimmed, the cables stopped humming and glowing, and the workers at the Middleburg Power Plant sighed in relief.

“PHYLLIS!” I screamed, stomping my way up the aisles and just underneath her catwalks. “What are you doing?! Penn's still back there!”

“Exactly. Is where he belongs now.”

What happened after that was all a blur. There was a lot of screaming, a lot of crying, and a lot of wrecking things, until I finally passed out in my bed with my eyes red, my throat hoarse, and my fists throbbing and bleeding.

The one thing I remembered, though, was when Phyllis pulled out Penn's part-time hero contract and pointed out a clause somewhere in that mess of legalese. Phyllis summed it up nicely herself:

“All heroes go on missions with knowledge that maybe they not come back.”

* * *

Penn's uncle and aunt were devastated. We never did know what his mom and dad thought, or if they'd ever know, because Penn owned the only MUHU in existence.

At school, there was a whole tizzy about grief counseling, an assembly about Penn's bogus “untimely death,” and students being allowed to make eulogies for him.

If I wasn't so numb then, I would have probably ran up to the stage and throttled almost every single one of those kids, the bottom feeding attention grabbers, piggybacking on a tragedy to try and get their 15 minutes of fame.

Larry was broken up about it, but in the end, he was still principal to an entire school and letting the “death” of one student get to him too badly would be unprofessional. He was back to his normal cheery, oblivious self within the week, though with me and Boone, we'd always see that flash of regret in his eyes.

And Rippen? Without Penn to rile him up in class, banter with him, or be the one to fight him during missions, he just… changed. He was still a jerkbag in art class, giving almost everyone F's, F-'s, and sometimes triple F-'s, but you could tell he just wasn't the same.

As for me and Boone… we're still friends. But some days, it felt like our only reason was because Penn had brought us together, and we were staying together for his sake.

It never stopped hurting, when people pointed it out and said we were doing it “in his memory” instead.

I wanted to scream at them. “Penn's not dead!” I imagined myself shouting right in their faces, make sure they and everyone around us heard me.

But then a part of me always stopped me—the same one I used to feed bogus explanations about all the bruises and the cuts to my parents—Boone would grab my shoulder, I'd maybe mumble a halfhearted thanks, the two of us would leave the area as quickly as possible, and that was that.

All of that never held a candle up to me and Boone's first real conversation after the incident though. It was on lunch period the day after Penn stayed behind in the Clockwork Dimension.

I didn't hear the first part of it; I'd skipped dinner the night before, and barely ate breakfast that morning, and now my body was reminding me it needed food, whether or not Penn was with us. I was already half-way down a bologna sandwich that I barely tasted before Boone snapped his hands in front of my eyes.

I stopped munching a mouthful of Wonder Bread, mustard, and store-bought bologna. A little scrap of meat fell out of my mouth before I caught it and shoved it back in—I was that hungry.

“Yo, Sash, did you hear what I just asked you?”

I shook my head and started chewing again, a little slower this time.

“I said are you going to work today, or are you going to sit it out?”

I nearly choked on my food. I'd been so busy with Penn's leaving us, and going through the day without killing anyone who was offering condolences that I'd forgotten all about our jobs as part-time heroes.

One that me and Boone would be going into as a Dynamic Duo, now that we were less one.

I chewed the rest of my food, now even more tasteless than it was before. I thought long and hard for a few minutes before I answered Boone.

“I think I'm not going to work today—go home and use the time to write my resignation letter.”

Boone's eyes widened. “Sash, you can't be serious!”

Normally, this would have been the part where I'd yell at him. Or I'd scowl, then snap at him. Or I'd make some sort of sarcastic line.

But that moment, my voice came out tiny, weak, barely a whisper—so unlike me I couldn't believe it really was mine.

“I can't do this anymore, Boone. Not without Penn.”

Boone frowned. His normally relaxed and contented look darkened. I'd seen Boone happy, I'd seen Boone scared, but I'd rarely seen Boone _angry._

“You _have_ to, Sashi. Somewhere later today, there's a dimension in need of saving. And we're going to be the heroes that do that.”

I tried to think up of a reply, something mean, something blunt, maybe even something funny, though I think I left my funny bone in the Clown Dimension.

But this time, nothing came out. Or maybe something did, but it was so quiet it wouldn't have mattered.

Boone's face softened. Another rare sight: Boone sad.

“Would Penn have wanted you to quit? Or would he have wanted you to keep on going without him? For the sake of all the people that still need saving?”

We didn't speak for the rest of the day. I finished my lunch. I went through the rest of school without anyone or anything getting me angry—or really, feeling any sort of emotion.

Then, once school let out, I got on the bus, and paid up for a trip to the Odyssey.

Boone was right: whatever happened, I had a job to do.


	2. Two Plus One, Minus One, Plus One...

“Hiii! Oh, man, I'm super excited right now—my first mission as a part-time Hero! With an actual, veteran Sidekick _and_ a Wiseman!”

I only half-listened to our newest temporary part-time Hero.

Phyllis was, officially speaking, supposed to gauge how well we worked during the missions themselves, but like every other part-time Hero we've had, their fate was sealed the moment they walked through the Odyssey’s doors.

These days, it was really more of a bet of how long the new part-time Heroes would last, than if they could replace Penn. At the minimum, they had two weeks, and our longest runner got a good two months and three days in, before a chance incident paired them up with their now permanent partner, a part-time Sidekick.

I don't remember any of their names. Maybe kept it in short-term memory, wrote them down on my arm so I'd have some way of not calling them by generic nicknames. I never cared to because I knew they weren't going to last.

It almost bothered me how hard some of those Heroes would try to fit in. Like a square peg trying to fit into a circle hole, then sanding themselves down so they'd go in, but never quite fill it out. So completely, absolutely unshakeable in their belief that they could just make themselves belong if they tried hard enough.

My favourite Heroes were the ones that were quiet—the ones that realized our arrangement wasn't going to work in the long-term, and so they were just completely, absolutely professional, with the minimal amount of fuss and casual conversation.

Boone complained that they were the most boring missions we've ever had, but to me, all the colour and the fun had been drained out of them ever since Penn left us behind.

I still went on missions. I still saved the day. But that didn't mean I'd have to enjoy them still.

A giant grab bag of personalities and appearances all of these part-time heroes were, however, there was one thing that united them all:

They were all willing to make the tough decisions.

No matter how cowardly they seemed, no matter how downright mean they got, no matter how quiet and seemingly detached and aloof they appeared to be, every single one of them could step up to the plate if the situation called for it.

Some days, I hated them for it. Because in those moments when they'd jump off the helicopter to get those left behind on the platform, those times they'd risk the timer on the bomb hitting zero if meant saving one more life, those occasions when they'd snap out of the shock first and jump into action, attack the Eldritch Breakfast from _Way_ In The Back Of The Fridge far earlier than me or Boone could…

It all reminded me too much of Penn, how he'd have done the same thing if he was in their shoes. And immediately after that, all I could think about was Penn, how he'd made the toughest decision of all, and now he wasn't with us anymore.

At the heart of it, that's why none of those prospective part-time Heroes ever lasted: I couldn't work with someone who could bring me such pain on a daily basis, and none of them wanted to or could ever know me well enough to help.

Boone tried, obviously, but he never had the same charisma, the same charm, the same determination that Penn had, the one that made you forget your differences in the service of one common, greater goal.

I eventually learned how to cope pretty effectively with a bar of chocolate. I used to get the big boxes of bites, or the jumbo bars, until both my wallet and my clothes started to complain, so now I enter a zen like trance while slowly nibbling a regular sized milk chocolate bar into nothing.

Some days, I get a different kind, focus on the little extra bits like chewing the nougats, licking the caramel filling, or crunching down on the chocolate cookie bits.

The real solution was professional help, but therapists specializing in heroes are astoundingly expensive, and trying to get by with a regular one and playing Penn's sacrifice as an actual death just doesn't work for me.

Plus, the chocolate bars were cheap and easy. Kind of like emotional duct-tape, only not nearly as effective. They only got me through the day, but a day was all I needed.

That is, until, a year after that fateful mission.

For the whole morning that day, I thought Boone was just being Boone, only more so. That is to say, strange, incomprehensible, and annoying. Normally, this would have been where Penn would ask him what was wrong, and using their “bro bond” the two of them would easily and quickly solve it.

Penn not being around, however, the only thing that I could do was ask him myself.

“Boone, why are you acting so weird?” I asked during lunch.

Boone fidgeted about more and looked even more nervous. “You mean you don't remember?”

“No, I don't.”

I could already feel my head pounding. Memories of events and specific dates had only given me plenty of grief that past year, so I never really gave them much thought anymore.

Boone held out his hands. “Okay, I'll give you a hint, it involves--”

I slammed my palms on the table and stood up from my seat. “Just tell me what the heck is going on, will you?!”

I found myself unconsciously waiting for Penn to scold me or put his hand on my shoulder, but then I remembered, and I felt even worse.

I awkwardly fell back onto the table bench. “Boone: I'm sorry.”

Boone smiled and put his arms back down. “It's cool. I figure you'd be pretty emotional today, what with it being the anniversary of Penn's staying behind, and all.”

Just from the look on his face, you knew that Boone realized he had _seriously_ messed up.

He was in no danger, however. Immediately after those words left his mouth, I suddenly felt numb.

Not depressed or on the verge of tears. Not angry and about to explode at something or someone. Just numb, completely dead to the world.

I skipped the rest of my lunch, not feeling hungry anymore. Or really, feeling anything as I zombied through the rest of my day.

I still went to the Odyssey and got ready for work, however. It was the least I could do for Penn that day—save one more dimension, like he did every single day, never fail.

Our part-time Hero was the same one from yesterday, the chipper pixie that wanted to become our new best friend or so help us. Their bit this time was trying to be supportive, help us cope, and "bond through love and healing" or something, but if I was half-listening yesterday, I was completely ignoring them today.

Phyllis said nothing as she readied the MUT and keyed in the coordinates. That should have been my clue, but I wasn't paying attention, promised myself I'd zone back in once we zapped. Until then, I'd be a zombie.

The screen opened, we saw a glimpse of our destination, and then there was suddenly only one thing on my mind:

Penn.

The clockwork world before me was unmistakable.

It was the same world of artificial everything--people, animals, even the plants all composed of hundreds of thousands of gears, cogs, and mechanisms all working together in concert, ticking along at the same beat.

We zapped in. Our new part-time Hero commented about how interesting the dimension was, admired their new clockwork doll body, but I ignored them.

I didn't need to check my specs to know where I was supposed to go: into the giant heart-shaped building in the distance, the World's Metronome.

I started running towards it.

“Wait! You haven't briefed us about the mission yet!” The part-time Hero yelled, but I kept on running.

Soon, they and Boone had caught up, but only barely.

“Sashi! Please!” The part-time Hero screamed. “What's the rush?!”

“My friend's in there!” I yelled back.

In that moment, I felt a new respect for that Hero, whoever they were. They immediately stopped the idle chatter, the enthusiastic friendliness, and put on their game face as we came to the first line of defenses of the Metronome.

There was no time to waste. The animals, the plants, and the people wouldn't stop for another couple of hours, thanks to the reserves spared for changing Caretakers.

But there was only hours and minutes left before Penn's year was up.


	3. Two Become One

Even with Penn as the Caretaker, there was no changing the gauntlet of traps and obstacles that surrounded the World's Metronome.

It was the one source of power and order for the entire dimension, and as I'd later learn, getting through that mess of spring loaded clubs, swinging guillotines, and pneumatic spikes was part of the process of replacing the old Caretaker with a new one.

No wonder part-time Heroes like us were needed in this dimension.

Larry and Rippen struggled with the same deathtraps as we did, but there were only two of them and three of us. Boone and the Hero stayed behind to help sabotage and slow down Rippen, letting me focus on getting to the core.

I got past the last line of security. I kicked a few leftover Clockwork piranhas off my leg, then threw open the doors of the Metronome's core.

I grinned as the light of the machines inside blinded me. I started thinking of what I was going to say to Penn after a year. I decided I'd wait for what him to start the conversation first—witty lines and clever openers was what he was good at, after all.

It never came. My grin shattered into a million pieces.

The cages hung high up in the ceiling, the mechanical arms with their weapons were at bay and gestured to the throne like they were servants guiding the new Caretaker to their place.

And in the center of it all was Penn, grinning like an idiot, all the gears on his body silent and unmoving.

I realized he had been dead for a long time already. Possibly even before we zapped into the dimension. Which means I had rushed all this way for nothing but the mission.

One I still had to complete.

I stepped up to the throne, stopped in front of Penn's corpse. I didn't want to just pull him off, let his lifeless body clatter on the floor like Rippen did the old Caretaker or Penn did him, but I didn't have much choice.

I put my hands on Penn's shoulders, and one of the mechanical arms tapped me on the back.

I looked over my shoulder and saw some of them had gathered before me, their claws all open and pressed together, as if they were holding their non-existent palms up.

I understood what they wanted me to do.

Instead of throwing Penn off, I lifted him up by his armpits, laid him out on the bed of claws like he was sleeping. Several more claws joined the others, fixing his wayward limbs, even fixing the gears on his hair so it looked like the curly, disorganized mess it was back when he was alive and human.

I stepped up to the throne, turned around and got ready to sit on it.

The arms carried Penn away to who-knows-where—but not before one of them grabbed his arm and made him wave goodbye for him.

There were oily tears in my eyes as I waved back.

The others burst through the core's doors at the same time, still fighting with each other and the attack animals.

I sat down on the throne.

Before the cage could even lock around me, everyone but me zapped out, and it all became a blur once more.

* * *

I was still sitting on the throne when I came to. I frowned, started thinking about how I was going to spend the rest of my year just sitting down on this chair and letting machines drain the life out of me.

Then I saw Penn standing in front of me. He was smiling.

And he wasn't a Clockwork person anymore. He was back to being a human—same curly red hair, same blue eyes, not a single gear or cog to be seen on his person.

I rocketed up from the throne—and then I realized, there were suddenly two of me.

The Clockwork me, still sitting on the throne and locked into the cage, the expression on the mechanical face confused.

Then there was the other me, the one whose eyes I was seeing through, standing in front of the throne, as human as Penn was.

I looked back at him. He was still smiling.

I cautiously moved towards the bars, and found out I could pass right through them, like I was a ghost. I threw myself through the rest of the cage and the security, till I stumbled forward and came just a foot away from Penn.

He still didn't say anything, just kept on smiling.

“Are you real?” I asked.

Penn chuckled. “Technically speaking, since you're now the Caretaker, everything is as real as you make it, so--”

_Smack._

I felt my hand hit his cheek. I heard the sound it made. I watched as Penn recoiled and staggered back, exactly as he would have back in our home dimension.

Penn rubbed the glowing red mark on his cheek, then smiled at me again. “Okay, I'll admit it, I deserved that.”

I scowled at him. Then I grinned. “You're real.”

Penn held his arms out. “Yep.”

I rushed forward and hugged him. I started crying into his chest. Penn just kept on smiling and patted me on the back.

I don't know how long we stayed we like that—it could have been seconds, it could have been minutes, it could have been hours. But eventually, it ended, and we both pulled away from each other.

I wiped the tears from my eyes with the sleeve of my dress. “How are you still here?” I asked.

Penn shrugged. “I'm not sure on the exact details of it all, but basically, when your time is up as the current Caretaker, your soul—or whatever you like to call it—gets sucked into this dimension. Then, you can either become the mentor for the new Caretaker—traditionally, it's the last guy, though really, anyone can do it—or be reborn as one of the animals, the people, or even part of the world itself.

“I hear being a patch of farmland is a pretty interesting experience. Quiet, serene, kind of painful when they till you, but having plants grow from you is rather fulfilling, they say.”

I nodded, slowly taking in all the implications of what he said.

“And before you ask, we're not here permanently: this whole Dimension and a few others just like it are kind of like MUTs for dead people—eventually, we may get reborn in an entirely new dimension.”

Fear flooded me. Reborn into another dimension? I didn't cherish the thought of being separated from Penn again.

Penn smiled again and held out his hands. “It's all planned, don't worry, and once you accept it, it's actually pretty beautiful, if I do say so myself. Kind of like the Circle of Life from the Lion King. Oh, and spoiler alert!: Boone's joining us next year.

“And trust me, we're not getting reborn into other dimensions without each other; turns out, we weren't friends just 'cause.”

I smiled. Then, I frowned again. “What about your parents? My parents? My brother? Boone's family?”

Penn shook his head sadly, and put his hands on my shoulders. “Being a hero means having to make the tough choices, if it means saving the day.”

My frown grew deeper. “Wait, how are we going to know each other when we're reborn?”

Penn shook his head. “We don't, actually. There's gonna be something that'll bring us back together, and then we'll just know—or that's what the guys that came back here said.”

I groaned and sat down on one of the steps, put a fist to the side of my head, and started thinking. Even if I was now the master controller of an entire dimension, I still wasn't immune to confusion or headaches, which sucked.

Penn joined me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Don't feel bad; I was this confused when I started out, too. You'll figure it out eventually, though, and trust me, it helps if you let it simmer in the back of your head while you do your Caretaker duties.”

I perked up and looked over my shoulder, back at my Clockwork body still on the throne. I'd forgotten all about it after all that just happened.

The pipes attached to the throne kept on glowing and pulsing with that green energy. I could feel the world slowly draining my life away, turning me into a part of it bit by bit. It's not as awful as it sounds; it was actually pretty nice, like slowly falling asleep on a really comfortable bed.

I turned back to Penn. “So… what do I do, exactly?”

Penn grinned. “Well, the first thing every new Caretaker needs to do is get a feel for the world. Just relax, don't think, just feel.”

I did. And what happened next, I can't completely describe in words.

I was the heart of the world. I was the brain. I could see and feel everything, affect and take control of anything. I was as much a part of it as the birds singing in tune, the raindrops falling at exactly the same time as each other, and sun and the moon slowly ticking their way across the sky.

It was beautiful. It was empowering. It was… something so much more—that feeling you got when you knew you're part of something much bigger than yourself but times infinity.

No wonder Rippen wanted to steal the throne so badly, become a full-time villain. Being in charge of an entire dimension was amazing, to say the least.

I don't know how long I stayed like that, just listening to the steady, clockwork rhythm of the world, with me at the center of all of it.

When I finally zoned back into the core, Penn was still there, still smiling and still holding my shoulder.

“Pretty amazing, huh?”

That didn't even begin to cover it. But since it was all we had, I had to agree.

“C'mon,” Penn thumbed to the door. “I'll show you the basics like the day-night cycle, and making sure things that go up go down again eventually. Then, we can get to the _really_ cool tricks.”

I smiled and followed after him.

I stopped being sad when I remembered all the people I'd left behind.

I started being happy when I thought about what they were doing right now, how they were moving on without me.

I got excited waiting for the time when Boone would join us, me and Penn would teach him how to be a Caretaker, and when his year was up, the three of us would become a team once more.

Back in my Clockwork body, sitting safely on the throne, the frown on my face turned into that same stupid grin Penn had.


	4. Two Become Three

Here I was, one of the most successful freelance enforcers in the criminal underbelly of three galaxies, and this Peacekeeper thought she could just walk into my office and get my help by asking nicely.

I glared at and loomed over the woman across my desk, making sure the light glinted off my targeting assist module and HUD device—my “specs,” as I liked to call them.

“What's in it for me?” I asked.

“A chance to save the galaxy.” She replied, unfazed.

I studied her face for a good, long time. Her robot friend pattered up beside her to make itself annoying once again, but fortunately for all of us, the Peacekeeper shushed it before it could make so much as a beep.

I frowned. “You're completely serious, aren't you?”

The Peacekeeper nodded. “Will you help us now?”

I leaned back into my chair. The fact that I could never get comfortable on it helped me think.

People always complained that ergonomic chairs were easily available, that I could easily afford a baker's dozen of them, and that I didn't need to keep buying the cheap plastic chairs that'd exist till all the suns went Nova.

Eventually, I sat up to a slightly less painful position and looked the Peacekeeper in her eyes.

“You know there's two other galaxies out there, and they're working on colonizing a fourth, right? What's stopping me from just getting out of dodge, letting whatever the hell is going to happen, happen?”

The Peacekeeper frowned even deeper. “Because what's going to happen is not going to stop at one galaxy. They never do.

“So are you going to sit back and wait till there's nowhere left to run, or are you going to stop this right now, before we have to lose anything?”

I scowled. Normally, this'd be when I'd tell her to shove it, get the Sam Hill out of my office, then wonder where the heck any critter with two brain cells to rub together would come up with this sort of baloney.

But there was something telling me she was talking the truth. Something that if you asked me what it was, I'd just shrug, and that's the best answer pretty much anyone could make about it.

“Alright.” I grunted. “What do you need me to do?”

The Peacekeeper smiled. Now that she wasn't being annoying or ridiculous, I had to say, she actually looked pretty cute. Even with the ridiculous curly red hair that was pretty much everywhere.

“Just follow my orders, and we'll be fine!” She offered her hand. “The name's Genesis Naught, but just call me Gen. You would be?”

“Just keep calling me Angel.” I said as I eyed her hand for buzzers—you never really knew in this business. “And whatever certain individuals might tell you, _do not_ call me Sasha.”

I found no traps on her hand, and shook it. Gen had a firm grip, confident, which I liked.

Gen took her hand back and gestured to her robot friend. “And this is my best friend in all the known galaxies, Pearl! She's an AI, and she's sentient, so she'd _really_ prefer it if you call her a she, or at the very least, a they.”

“Just because you're a scary criminal person and really good with guns and killing people doesn't mean you can just go disrespecting my rights as a sentient being!” Pearl chimed.

I grunted, resisted the urge to pull a gun on the bot, and committed their names to memory. Nothing sours client relationships quite like unwanted snark, unnecessary threats of violence, and forgetting their names.

I'd think about whether or not the Peacekeeper was actually serious or she was just leading me into something else entirely later.

Because right now, I had a job to do.


End file.
